Scheherazade
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Rabbit confronts Sally Anne Perkins in a place without time or space. Side Fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus"


**Author's Note: A warning, for those of you about to embark on this frankly bizarre and horrifying fic. One, this is a side fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and if you haven't read a decent way into that you'll be somewhat confused. You could probably get away with it, but still, it's the spirit of the thing. I still think you would be confused.**

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A curious, infinite, whiteness or perhaps blackness, the color that all colors are before they learn their true name.

This was what Sally Anne Perkins saw when she… woke up. Because it was like waking up in a way, being pulled out of something and into something else, turning around and realizing that you had walked through a door that you had never even known existed.

Or at least, that was how it felt to her, in the sense that she could feel anything anymore.

All at once everything that was not her, everything else, seemed to become aware of her presence no aware of her awareness. It sparked, and instead of nothingness there was a pale girl crouched across from her, the girl balanced on the balls of her heels rocking slightly and surveyed Sally with her chin cradled in her hands.

The girl was wearing a decidedly muggle outfit, worn sneakers that had once been white, a frayed poppy red sweater, blue shorts but the muggle qualities didn't extend to the girl herself. Her red hair, her green eyes, even her pale skin were far from human.

"Ellie Potter." Sally said, tasting the words almost, and as she said them it clicked that the girl she was looking at was Eleanor Lily Potter, the girl who lived.

The girl merely raised her eyebrows slightly and then somehow conveyed amusement, derisiveness, and anticipation into a single syllable, "Oh?"

"Ellie Potter, you're in my year." She continued, and Ellie was, they were both in their second year now in Hogwarts. Sally was in Hufflepuff, and in realizing that she realized that she wasn't anywhere in Hogwarts at the moment, and that people would be missing her.

"Ellie, where are we? We need to get back to Hogwarts, people will be looking for us!" At this point, Sally started to panic. At least, she thought to herself Ellie was here. If anyone could get out of this place, whatever this place was, it would be Ellie Potter.

Sally wouldn't be surprised if Ellie could do everything.

But Ellie did nothing, she simply rocked back to her heels and then back to her toes, a smile growing on her lips, "Really, looking for us?"

And that was when Sally realized that Ellie wasn't Ellie, at least, not the Ellie she was looking at. Ellie's smile became a grin, one that was jagged and sharp, the kind used to tear flesh. Sally shivered and took a step away.

"Ah, I've made you unhappy." Ellie said, the smile dripping away and leaving a blank confusion in its place, and Sally couldn't help but note that Ellie wasn't speaking correctly. She had odd pauses in between her words, odd phrasings and lilts to her expression, the words themselves were said correctly but it was as if she didn't know how to properly inflect on a sentence.

"You aren't Ellie."

At this something sparked in Ellie's eyes and all at once Ellie was standing, great shadows extending from her, and her expression once again had shifted into something older and ancient, "Lily is Lily, she is that she is, I am not that I am not. It is a common mistake."

She didn't understand and that seemed to disappoint Ellie, no it, seemed to disappoint it. It stalked forward, its motion boneless and fluid, graceful in a way that humans were not meant to be graceful.

"Such an irrelevant little thing you are, Sally Anne Perkins."

Before Sally could move the not-Ellie was stroking her hair back from her forehead, running her fingers over Sally's face, cheeks, eyelids, and Sally could only stand in horror and think that this thing wasn't even remotely human.

"I… I want to go home." She said, closing her eyes shut tight, and the fingers paused when she said it removed themselves from her face but then there were lips at her ear.

"Home?"

"I want to go home!" She screamed, opening her eyes, and to her horror and surprise finding that the thing wearing Ellie's face had moved back to its original position. Where she had sworn it was touching her it was now squatting back on the floor, inspecting its fingernails with keen disinterest.

"Would you like to play a riddle game?" It said, casually, looking up at her as if completely indifferent and Sally wanted to say no, wanted to scream again that she just wanted to go home, but the words were stuck in her throat.

"I think I like games, especially riddle games, they're like labyrinths. Only, it's not so easy as turning left. They're tricky labyrinths, you have to think, and to think you have to be… if only for a moment. Being, existing, it's a curious sort of feeling…" The thing trailed off momentarily, still looking at its fingers, and then dropped the fingers.

"Well, Sally Anne Perkins, are you going first?"

"No." She said, quickly, but whether it was to the question or the situation she didn't really know.

"No?" It cocked Ellie's head and its eyes seemed to glow an unnatural green and all at once Sally felt that she had made a grave mistake and that playing the riddle game was safer than not playing it.

"No, I mean, yes I'll go first… I…" She thought back, trying to think of a riddle, any riddle, but all seemed to slip from her. She'd never been one for riddles anyway, the idea of being in Ravenclaw and having one for a weekly password terrified her. Still, she didn't like the way it was looking at her, just waiting for her to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and give it the opening it needed.

She didn't have her wand with her, she really had nothing with her, she wasn't even sure if she was wearing anything right now but somehow that wasn't important. Not as important as making sure that it stayed a far distance away from her.

"What have I got in my pocket?" She blinked, she didn't know where that had come from, she didn't have pockets at the moment and that certainly wasn't a riddle.

It, however, seemed very entertained by her response. It clapped its hands together, its face contorted into a childish grin, one she'd actually seen on Ellie Potter's face before, and it looked positively delighted, "Oh, very very good and very very tricky, Sally Anne Perkins. Unfortunately for you, I happen to know the answer to this one. You have a ring in your pocket."

Sally didn't have a ring in her pocket, she still didn't have pockets, but the thing seemed more than content by its own solution.

"My turn." It said with delight and then as if its grin had never existed in the first place that darker predatory look returned, "What is something that should not exist?"

"What?" She asked, but it gave her an impatient look, as if asking for it to repeat itself was against the rules they hadn't laid out. It was waiting for an answer, it shifted, and Sally blurted out the only answer she had.

"I… I don't know!"

"You're not a very good Scheherazade, are you?" Again it said this right beside her, its breath on her ear, she blinked and it was practically touching her. She whirled to face it and backed up a few steps.

It didn't seem to mind though and stepped in time with her until they were in exactly the same position as before. It grinned at her antics before continuing, "Sometimes demons are formed from mankind's suffering, regret, hatred, and love. These are considered quite terrible, and many dispute the necessity of their existence, but without them humanity is hardly itself. What does it mean, Sally Anne Perkins, to be superfluous?"

To be superfluous is to be Sally Anne Perkins. That was what it was getting at, she didn't know how or why, because she'd never thought that herself except maybe in her darkest loneliest moments but that was what it wanted her to say.

"Where are we? Who are you really? Can I go home? I want to go home!" The questions tumbled out one after another as she clutched at herself.

"We are in between time and space, fading from existence." It said and as it said it Ellie's hair became white and its eyes black, it shifted and grew, until finally Sally recognized her other classmate Lepur Rabbitson from Albania, "I am all things that are not Lily, and I have had few names, but recently I go by Rabbit. As for you, well, you are not a thing capable of wanting anymore."

"I want to go home!" She insisted and it, Lepur Rabbitson who she'd always thought was so pretty, gave her a flat look.

"I have removed you from reality, Sally Anne Perkins, because I find your existence nauseatingly unimportant. I have devoured you, as you will, to keep you from clogging up the gears that move reality's clock face. You have no purpose and so I have removed any ability or else need for you to have purpose."

It moved towards her, its pale fingers outstretched as if to touch her face again, and then she blurted, "I'll tell you a story!"

"Oh?" It asked, and she hated it, hated these one syllable questions it asked her but its hand stopped, hovered over her face.

"You… You like stories, games and stories, and riddles don't you?"

"Am I a being capable of liking or disliking?" It asked instead but Sally wasn't going to take that, because inside her head a voice was screaming stall and she would listen to it. Stall or you don't have the option of doing anything anymore.

"Yes, and you like games and stories. So I'll tell you stories and in return, you'll let me go back to Hogwarts."

The thing gave her a flat look, one that looked out of place on Lepur's face but would have looked at home on Ellie's, it was that tried and irritated expression she got in History of Magic when she was deciding if something was worth her time or not. The sight of it made her want to vomit.

"What story could an irrelevant little girl like you possibly tell me?" The thing wearing Lepur's face asked, its head tilted to the side.

"The best kind. A love story." She blurted, "One with adventure, heroics, brave knights…"

"And three brothers and a bridge." It finished for her, and she paused, because it seemed strangely insistent.

"…And three brothers and a bridge." She finished, weakly, and then took a breath, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a fair and beautiful princess. She was pale like moonlight with hair gold as…"

"Red like the sunset." It cut in, once again, and then repeated, "Her hair is red, like blood, like flowers, like the sun, like life. It's always red."

Sally swallowed, took a deep breath, and continued, "She was pale like moonlight with hair as red as a sunset. She was loved by everyone in the kingdom because she was not only beautiful but she was also kind…"

"No, she's like the sun, she burns and you are forced to look away for fear of blindness. She bursts into existence and everything else revolves around her, forever and always, and it is never as simple as kindness. It is something you covet but it is not kindness, that's not the spark of her." It had closed Lepur's coal black eyes, had brought its fingers together in front of its lips as if in prayer, and it looked almost as if it had forgotten Sally was there.

Sally had been planning on a story with a knight and a maiden, the one with the kind young wizard advisor, but that was not the story that was being told and she didn't know where this one was going. With a beautiful princess who was not kind and three brothers and a bridge.

But if she didn't finish this story then she would die.

"One day a great and powerful dark wizard from another kingdom kidnapped her and…"

Its eyes, Lepur's eyes, abruptly opened, "When does she get to the river?"

Sally felt something in her shatter into pieces, her heart stuttered, "What river?"

"The river with the bridge."

She swallowed, her saliva running thick down her throat, "Well, she's being kidnapped right now."

"The bridge is what is important." What it didn't say was that the kidnapping, the knight she'd planned on showing up, and the good wizard weren't important. Only this bridge was.

"I guess then, after she escapes… After she escapes she reaches the bridge. And when she gets there she finds… She finds the three brothers."

Something about this tale was vaguely familiar, she couldn't help but think, something about it was ringing in her memory. A bridge, a river, and three brothers. But for the life of her she couldn't remember it.

She was about to keep going when she stopped, couldn't look away from its face, no Lepur's face, he looked old somehow. Not with wrinkles and lines but it was as if his eyes had sunk into his face and he stared out into nothing. There was such a deep sorrow in him, one that weighed in his every bone, until it seemed as if he might sink into the ground.

"That was when she made her choice. Her second choice… And she still burns so brightly, so bright you fear she will go out, but she never does." An odd, pained smile, worked its way onto Lepur Rabbitson's lips. For a moment he simply stood, smiling that tortured smile to himself, finishing the story inside his own head.

"Thank you, Sally Anne Perkins, for telling me a story." It finally said and Sally realized it had taken her silence for an ending and she should have been more careful because the story wasn't supposed to end.

"I… I have another…"

He shook his head, "There is only ever one story."

And then she wasn't any more and there was only Rabbit, standing alone in the Hogwarts' hallway, staring straight ahead at a moving portrait that contained nothing but the shadow of a woman.

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 **Author's Note: So, there's that, you know, Sally Anne Perkins getting eaten. In other news this was written for the 2600th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" by "somnolentSlumber" who asked for a fic describing Sally Anne Perkins getting eaten by Rabbit. And you know, the sad thing is, I'm now terrified of Rabbit too.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are always appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**


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